Secondary PC/Laptop?

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Gilbert_pwns

Gawd
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Nov 13, 2010
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I've had a multiple monitor set up for years and have mostly enjoyed this set up. However, there was always the minor performance hit that I would take on games when watching a video or using another program on the second monitor. Not to mention all the little inconveniences of tabbing out or accidentally moving my mouse outside of the game.

Recently I got the idea of running a low spec PC or laptop to run programs on the other monitors and having my gaming PC strictly to run games on a high refresh rate monitor. I've never really heard anyone do this before and wonder if it's feasible. Any thoughts and recommendations on the secondary system. Also I plan to get a 1080p OLED monitor in the future. I currently have a 3080
 
There a couple of possible ways to go, if game allow to run in fullscreen (instead of windowed) it should lock the mouse-in, but it make access to your second monitor content a bit more inconveniant.

Laptop here if you do not really have one is can be a more useful purchase, because well now you will have a laptop, which can always happen to be of use, you can mouse without border between them over the network (i.e. when your mouse go to second monitor it change which computer it control):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/download/details.aspx?id=35460

Tend to work well, you can copy-paste text and file easily has well. It make controlling more than one computer on more than one monitor with the same keyboard-mouse quite easy and comfortable (but would open the door to the same mouse issues).

Recommendation would depends on what the other programs on the second monitor are, if it is only youtube, discord, browser type, tablets, laptop, old PC, giant list of cheap option that should work, those Dell Intel Optiplex iGPU box:

710RLlV+YTL.jpg


If there is some used (computer place that sales company foreclosure or computer rotation can have good price on them), Intel iGPU support multiple monitor and will with quicksync be quite good and up to date in codec (for their age), noise, form factor, could be good for what you want to do and can become hometheater box later on or plex type server. If you see a good offer come by on them, but almost anything could do here depending on those secondary apps.
 
I use a Microsoft Surface Pro 4 for a second screen. The screen is unfortunately dying, but I like it so much that I think I'm going to buy another.
 
I always have a dedicated Windows PC as a gaming machine and a Linux workstation for everything else. Among other things for security reasons, there's no way I would install all those utils for Windows that only come without source code on an important machine. Needs a bit of electrical power but who's counting? :)
 
Im probably going to try a Chromebook that I have laying around first but I would want something with windows for programs. Open to Linux but have little experience with it.
 
Had some time to hook up the chromebook. Glad I did it, FPS on the gaming PC is WAY more stable now with a lot less dips and the dips being 1-2 fps at most even with background programs running.

As expected the chromebook is struggling to output to even a 1080p with youtube on. With that being said any specific mini pcs that anyone would recommend that I get on Amazon? Never had any experience with any of them and don't recognize any of the manufacturers. Not going to do much except watch videos, play music, do email and some work stuff on it. Will also use video format converters on it, record, run obs, and use it for video discord calls and the like. Fast and large storage would be nice as I'd primarily use it to download and back up files. Might be asking a lot but I also don't want to break the bank and want to keep it under 220USD or so. Definitely want to utilize 5ghz wifi and hook up additional monitors to it in the future.
 
Gilbert_pwns said:
Had some time to hook up the chromebook. Glad I did it, FPS on the gaming PC is WAY more stable now with a lot less dips and the dips being 1-2 fps at most even with background programs running.

As expected the chromebook is struggling to output to even a 1080p with youtube on. With that being said any specific mini pcs that anyone would recommend that I get on Amazon? Never had any experience with any of them and don't recognize any of the manufacturers. Not going to do much except watch videos, play music, do email and some work stuff on it. Will also use video format converters on it, record, run obs, and use it for video discord calls and the like. Fast and large storage would be nice as I'd primarily use it to download and back up files. Might be asking a lot but I also don't want to break the bank and want to keep it under 220USD or so. Definitely want to utilize 5ghz wifi and hook up additional monitors to it in the future.
Click to expand...

I snagged a refurbished Thinkpad up off Newegg at some point for like $140 that was a solid machine besides the screen being absolute shit. Threw an SSD in it and beat cheeks for the price. Served me well for a while.

It was in basically perfect shape, no damage, scratches, anything.

The screen was seriously hot garbage though, so it just stayed docked 24/7. Honestly useless as a laptop, but that was fine for me.
 
I've been using the tiny HP enterprise boxes for remote in streaming machines for my folks TV for a while now (so I can set up and start my nephews playing football from high school and college). Have it set up so I while I'm out of town at the game I can remote in from my phone and start the game for them if they're not feeling up to traveling for the game that week. It works absolutely perfectly for this and you can pick up a decent 1080 monitor for nothing these days (they've got a giant tv). The last mini pc I bought here in buy/sell. Imaged it and it's run flawlessly the whole time. I've had several family members and friends ask about it and get them and use them with lots of success as well when they came over to watch a college game and had such a nice time.

I have kept a mac mini as my second PC at my main home office and did most of my work on it with my gaming rig on the other monitors since the mac mini first released. Before those, it was a windows/linux pc. I did it mostly to keep up with the Mac OS changes so I wouldn't have to look up as much when I needed to interact with a linux or Mac box for work but if I had no need for that, I'd still have had the second computer at my desk; it just would have been another misc windows box from the prior gaming rig parts. I like the enterprise mini pcs for the silence, lack of heat output and rock solid update support for both firmware and windows compatibility though. If it just need to do streaming and web stuff for a desk... anything more is usually just a waste of power.

The one I bought last year was an HP EliteDesk 800 G3 Mini for $100 for example. There's something to be said for dead simple and reliable when you just don't need anything else. Right tool for the job and all that.
 
Gilbert_pwns said:
I've had a multiple monitor set up for years and have mostly enjoyed this set up. However, there was always the minor performance hit that I would take on games when watching a video or using another program on the second monitor. Not to mention all the little inconveniences of tabbing out or accidentally moving my mouse outside of the game.

Recently I got the idea of running a low spec PC or laptop to run programs on the other monitors and having my gaming PC strictly to run games on a high refresh rate monitor. I've never really heard anyone do this before and wonder if it's feasible. Any thoughts and recommendations on the secondary system. Also I plan to get a 1080p OLED monitor in the future. I currently have a 3080
Click to expand...

I use my Plex server as a second PC - but its not an overly low spec PC since it has all my spare parts as a backup machine (r5 5600g, 3060ti, 32gb DDR4, 1TB PCIE 4 nvme, 40+ tb of assorted HDDs)

I put off doing it for a long time, but what really made it a perfect swap over is using MouseWithoutBorders in PowerToys. It makes multiple machine control nearly flawless, giving you a virtual KVM. I have it set to require holding control to move the mouse to the other machine.
This tool alone made using multiple machines so painless that I can never ever go back to one. MWB has functions like clipboard and small file sharing (sub 100mb) across machines as well, so it truly is seamless for most stuff in normal use. *And its free*
 
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